Duong Nghe Ly, an English-learner from Vietnam, was followed home from his high school one day last year and punched in the face on the stoop of his home, according to The Associated Press. He is one of about 50 Asian students who boycotted South Philadelphia High School last year for a week in an attempt to get school administrators and others to take action to make the school safe for Asian students.

Jesse Washington, who covers race and ethnicity for the AP, has written a nuanced story about the tensions between immigrant students and African-American students at the high school. His reporting finds that the tensions are more about perceptions of opportunity than race.

At the end of last month, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the U.S. Department of Justice had found merit in claims that Asian students were attacked on Dec. 3 at South Philadelphia High School and told the district to take steps to address the issue.

I've put in a request to the Justice Department for a copy of the letter that the Inquirer reports was sent to school district officials. Back in January, I wrote that an Asian advocacy group had filed a complaint with the Justice Department contending that Philadelphia school and district officials had showed "deliberate indifference" to alleged abuse suffered by Asian students at South Philadelphia High.

A March report on an investigation of the Dec. 3 attacks by a retired federal judge carried out at the request of the school district said that some of the students who had been involved in attacks on Asians had been transferred to disciplinary schools or other schools.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A large number of Arizona's schools have been exempted from carrying out the state's mandate to separate English-language learners from other students for four hours a day to learn English skills because the schools don't have many ELLs, according to a technical brief released by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences at the end of last month.

The technical brief was researched and written by Eric Haas and Min Huang at the Regional Educational Laboratory at WestEd at the request of the Arizona Department of Education. Likely, Arizona state education officials wanted the information to use during an evidentiary hearing in the federal court case, Miriam Flores v. State of Arizona, that is now taking place at the U.S. District Court in Tucson. The case, which is nationally known as Horne v. Flores, focuses on Arizona's approach to educating ELLs. It was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2009 and remanded to the U.S. District Court in Tucson in June of last year. See the story I filed from Tucson about the first day of the hearing, Sept. 1, published at edweek.org.

The court case was first filed in 1992 by parents in the Nogales Unified School District who felt programs for ELLs weren't effective. It has evolved to now focus on whether Arizona's four-hour program for ELLs is working.

But the law that requires school districts to implement the program exempts any school that has 19 or fewer English-language learners. That turns out to be 41 percent of Arizona's schools, according to the study. Those same schools also don't have enough ELLs to be required by the No Child Left Behind law to report adequate yearly progress data for ELLs for federal accountability purposes. Another 14 percent of Arizona's schools have enough ELLs that they must implement the four-hour program, but they still don't have enough ELLs that they have to report AYP data for that group of students.

The study found that 45 percent of Arizona's schools have 40 or more ELLs and thus must both report AYP data for ELLs and implement the four-hour program.

The study found some common characteristics among those schools with the most ELLs in the state. Schools with a majority of ELLs tend to be primary schools rather than middle or high schools. They also tend to be traditional public schools where more than 75 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The study examined data for the 168,199 ELLs, or 16 percent of the students, who attended Arizona's schools during the 2007-08.

Another finding in the study stood out for me, given that I just wrote an article for Education Week about how charter schools are being urged by advocacy groups to better serve ELLs. The study found that charter schools in Arizona had the highest share of schools with no ELLs.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I'd like to offer a footnote to my coverage of the start of the evidentiary hearing here in Tucson, Ariz., on Wednesday for the long-running court case concerning Arizona's approach to educating ELLs. You can read my story about the hearing for the case, Horne v. Flores, which was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2009 and remanded to the U.S. District Court in Tucson in June of last year. Back here in the state, the case is known as Miriam Flores v. State of Arizona.

I'd like to follow up on what happened with subpoenas issued to two Arizona universities last month to turn over data in ELL studies that researchers had promised would remain confidential. I reported how some researchers were up in arms last month because the lawyer for Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne had subpoenaed the names of schools, school districts, and individuals participating in studies conducted by two expert witnesses scheduled to testify in the hearing. The lawyer, Eric J. Bistrow, said he needed the information to evaluate the validity of the studies.

But U.S. District Court Judge Raner C. Collins then ruled that the two universities--the University of Arizona, Tucson, and Arizona State University, Tempe--had to only turn over the names of schools and school districts involved in the studies, not the names of individuals.

At the start of the hearing on Wednesday, Bistrow reported that the University of Arizona was cooperating in turning over the data requested by the court, though problems with redacting material in CDs had delayed the process.

Bistrow also reported to Judge Collins that Arizona State had decided not to turn over the information requested by the court and had thus withdrawn as an expert witness for the hearing the professor from that university who had conducted an ELL study for which data had been subpoenaed.

That's my footnote, that Arizona State decided to withdraw a witness rather than break a promise of confidentiality to schools and districts that participated in a study.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Protesters weren't out in full force this morning as court proceedings got under way in a closely watched court case on Arizona's programs for English-language learners. But it wasn't for lack of intention.

Three supporters of parents involved in the Horne v. Flores lawsuit scratched plans to hold a demonstration in front of the U.S. District Courthouse here in Tucson, Ariz., this morning because they realized they needed a permit and didn't have one. Carole Edelsky, a retired professor of language and literacy education from Arizona State University, had prepared a sign saying that Arizona's program for ELLs, which separates them from other students for four hours each day to learn English skills, is "segregated educational inequality." Karen Austen, a retired teacher who just moved to Arizona from Ohio had painted a sign that said "Arizona: Working to restore segregation. Oh Dear." The third party was Sal Gabaldon, a language-acquisition specialist for Tucson public schools, who believes Arizona's approach to teaching ELLs isn't fair.

An evidentiary hearing began today in the case, which has attracted national attention. The case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court last April and remanded in June to the federal district court in Tucson to further examine "changed circumstances" in the education of ELLs since the case was first filed by parents of the Nogales, Ariz., school system in 1992. The case is called Flores v. State of Arizona back here in the state.

Tim Hogan, the lawyer for the Flores side of the case, said this morning that he will argue that Arizona's four-hour program "segregates and deprives ELLs of access to the curriculum." He said he'll also argue that the state's home-language survey, which asks only what is the primary language of a child as a first step for identifying ELLs, "reduces the number of ELLs entitled to such services."

Eric Bistrow, a lawyer for Tom Horne, the state's superintendent of public instruction, has told me previously that he will argue that the four-hour model is working. He said he'll also argue that the federal case should focus only on the education of ELLs in the Nogales school district and not districts across the whole state.

Look for my story tomorrow on what went on inside the courthouse.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I'll be reporting in Austin, Texas, and Tucson, Ariz., all next week. The blogging will be light. Look for a regular stream of blog posts again after Labor Day.

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In visiting schools, I've sometimes heard educators observe that if children are hungry in class, they can't concentrate on learning. I remember that one Oregon teacher of English-language learners, many from low-income migrant families, addressed this issue by keeping a basket of bananas in her classroom that she could give to children who hadn't eaten properly at home.

So I hand it to the National Council of La Raza for introducing a series of information briefs called "Profiles of Latino Health: A Closer Look at Child Nutrition." The series will provide information about both hunger and obesity among Latino children. An information brief in the nutrition series released today provides facts about how many Latino families lack "food security." That means that at times the families don't have enough food for everyone in the household because of a lack of money or other resources for food, the brief says. The problem is particularly acute in Latino families with children, the brief says.

The advocacy group has also brought together a group of advisers to lead an initiative to focus on good nutrition for all children. This month I wrote a story for EdWeek about how the recession has both increased the number of children participating in free lunch programs funded by the federal government in some communities and decreased the number in others, depending on how the programs are implemented.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Minnesota has joined the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment Consortium, bringing the total of states adopting the consortium's English-language-proficiency test to 23 plus the District of Columbia. Minnesota follows Missouri in making the decision to join.

Minnesota will continue to use its current English-proficiency test to assess English-language learners for the 2010-11 school year, said Jesse Markow, WIDA's manager of communications, in an e-mail to me. But at the start of the 2011-12 school year, the state will implement WIDA's English-proficiency standards and assessment, ACCESS for ELLs.

Once upon a time, the consortium had only a handful of member states. But it grew as it moved beyond simply providing English-proficiency standards and an assessment that states could use to comply with provisions for ELLs under the No Child Left Behind Act. It now is a one-stop-shopping place for ELLs and assessments with a screening test for identifying ELLs, professional development tools, and research projects about assessing ELLs.

So far, though, none of the states with the largest numbers of ELLs in the country, such as Arizona, California, New York, and Texas, have joined WIDA. An education official for New York recently told me it isn't cost-effective for states with large numbers of ELLs to join WIDA because the consortium charges the same per-pupil cost for all states, no matter how many ELLs they have. It's more affordable for New York to have its own English-proficiency test, he said.

Christine Dufour, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Education, told me in a phone interview yesterday that Minnesota education officials estimate that using the WIDA test is going to cost more than using the state's current test for English-language proficiency. But she said that they valued "additional features" of WIDA, such as the screening tool and professional development support.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:35 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Five proposed new charter schools in the Boston area hold promise for English-language learners, says an editorial published in The Boston Globe. A review by the newspaper in 2009 showed that only one Boston charter school, Excel Academy Charter School, located in East Boston, enrolled more than 4 percent English-language learners.

The editorial notes that the executive director of Excel is seeking state approval to open four new schools, which it says are likely to attract students from immigrant communities. And another school, proposed by the executive director of MATCH, aims to focus on educating English-language learners. MATCH runs a middle school and high school in Boston.

It's interesting that the editorial board of a mainstream, big-city newspaper is paying attention to whether charter schools are serving ELLs. The issue of whether charter schools are appropriately reaching out to immigrant families and are prepared to help students who are new to the language has cropped up in public debates in Massachusetts and New York state.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A federal judge ruled yesterday that two Arizona universities had to partially comply with a subpoena for a federal court case asking them to turn over data associated with research studies on Arizona's approach to educating English-language learners. Researchers for the studies had promised participants that names of schools, school districts, and individuals involved would remain confidential.

Judge Raner C. Collins, of the U.S. District Court in Tucson, issued an order yesterday saying the universities must provide the names of schools and school districts involved in the studies, but not the names of individuals who participated.

Lawyers for Tom Horne, Arizona's chief state school officer, have requested in a subpoena data from three studies that had been conducted for the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. The studies were carried out by one researcher from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and one from Arizona State University, Tempe, who are scheduled to be expert witnesses in the federal court case, Horne v. Flores. That case about how Arizona educates its ELLs was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2009 and remanded in July 2009 to the U.S. District Court in Tucson. An evidentiary hearing for the case, called Flores v. State of Arizona in the U.S. District Court, is set to start Sept. 1.

The studies take a critical view of Arizona's requirement that all English-language learners be separated into classrooms for four hours each day to learn discrete English skills. I wrote an article for EdWeek on Aug. 12 about how Patricia Gándara and Gary Orfield, the co-directors of the Civil Rights Project, characterized the request in the subpoena as an "egregious misuse of power and of intimidation" in a letter distributed to colleagues over the Internet. They worried that the subpoena's request for the release of data that had been promised to be confidential would discourage educators from participating in research in the future.

Eric J. Bistrow, a lawyer for Horne, has argued he needs the data to evaluate the accuracy of the information provided in court by the expert witnesses for the Flores side of the case.

The judge's order says that "[d]efendants are not entitled to the names of any individual research participants nor the names of any university students who conducted site visits." However, it also said that "[d]efendants are entitled to know the identity of the schools and school districts included in the research." The judge added that if a school or school district is so small that disclosure of its name would lead to discovery of the names of individual participants in studies, that school or district name doesn't need to be disclosed.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

English-language learners in secondary school need a separate, dedicated class for English-language development in addition to a class to learn the regular English-language-arts standards for their grade level, argue two experts on such students in a guide published by the California Department of Education for improving schooling for ELLs. The researchers frown on the common practice of school districts to stop giving English-language learners in middle or high school a set-aside class or dedicated time within another class for formal language instruction once the students have reached the high-intermediate or advanced levels of English proficiency. "This is precisely when skilled language instruction is critical to help propel them out of intermediate limbo into the advanced levels of English proficiency," they write.

Susana Dutro, the founding partner and CEO of E.L. Achieve, an education consulting organization, and Kate Kinsella, a faculty member for the Center for Teacher Efficacy at San Francisco State University, describe how schools can design courses for ELLs in grades 6-12 in a chapter in the book, Improving Education for English Learners: Research-Based Approaches, which I've already previewed on this blog. A kind soul has sent me a copy and I've had a chance to skim it.

So much of the research I see about instruction for ELLs focuses on elementary students, not secondary students, so I carefully read the chapter on research-based approaches for teaching adolescent ELLs. Dutro and Kinsella describe what a dedicated English-language-development course looks like. Most importantly, it is aligned to English-language-development standards that take into consideration how students move from one English-proficiency level to another, they say.

The ELD course teaches students according to their current English-proficiency level. It emphasizes listening and speaking through carefully planned interactions, according to Dutro and Kinsella. It integrates reading and writing into authentic experiences. It lays out a scope and sequence for grammatical forms. It teaches vocabulary.

A reading-intervention class is no substitute for an ELD class, Dutro and Kinsella say. The ELD class is important particularly because ELLs need the chance to practice oral language, they argue.

In regular secondary English classes, Kinsella explained to me in an e-mail message sent yesterday, "The focus on literacy analysis is often devoid of focused language development that would help students capably engage in literate discourse."

Typically, schools transition students out of a dedicated ELD class when the reach intermediate proficiency in English, she observed. "I could easily fill every work day with assisting a secondary school that is desperately seeking assistance with an evidence-based approach to accelerating the English achievement and literacy of students who have plateaued at intermediate proficiency."

This guide has much to offer from some of the most accomplished ELL researchers in the country. The chapter on secondary ELLs seemed particular useful in my view since so many high schools seem at a loss about how to create a comprehensive program for their ELLs.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend